ards, all
under the command of General Inigo Jones, from whom I received
unfailing courtesy. With them was linked General Stephenson's Brigade,
consisting of the Welsh, the Warwicks, the Essex, and the Yorks, these
two Brigades forming the Eleventh Division under General Pole Carew.
On our left was General Hutton with a strange medley of mounted
infantry to which almost every part of the empire had contributed some
of its noblest sons. On our right was General Tucker's Division, the
Seventh; and beyond that again other Divisions, covering a front of
about forty miles, which gradually narrowed down to twenty as we
neared Kroonstad. Reserves were left at Bloemfontein under General
Kelly Kenny; and Lord Methuen was on our remote left flank not far
from Mafeking; while on our remote right was Rundle's Division, the
Eighth. There thus set out for the conquest of the Transvaal a central
force nearly 50,000 strong--the finest army by far that England had
ever yet put into the field, and led by the ablest general she has
produced since Wellington. Yet it perhaps would be more correct to
speak of it as the first army _Greater_ Britain had ever fashioned;
and in my presence Lord Roberts openly gloried in being the first
general the empire had entrusted with the command of a really Imperial
host. In this epoch-making conflict neither the commander nor the
commanded had any cause to be ashamed one of the other.

Yet from this point onward there was astonishingly little fighting.
Before the campaign was over some of the guardsmen wore out several
pairs of boots, but scarcely fired another bullet. The Boers were so
out-manoeuvred that their mausers and machine-guns availed them
little. They fought scarcely any but rear-guard actions, and their
retreat was so rapid as to be almost a rout. Within about a month of
leaving Bloemfontein the Guards' Brigade was in Pretoria; which,
considering all they had to carry, and the constant repairing of the
railway line required from day to day, would be considered good
marching even if there had been no pom-poms planted to oppose
progress.

[Sidenote: _Brandfort._]

When we left Karee it was confidently predicted that the Boers would
make a stiff stand amid the kopjes which guard the prettily placed and
prettily planted little town of Brandfort. So the next day and the
day after we walked warily, while cannon to right of us and cannon to
left of us volleyed and thundered. Little harm was howev